Philip Sidney was born at Penshurst, in Kent, on the 29th ofNovember, 1554. His father, Sir Henry Sidney, had married Mary,eldest daughter of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, and Philipwas the eldest of their family of three sons and four daughters.Edmund Spenser and Walter Raleigh were of like age with PhilipSidney, differing only by about a year, and when Elizabeth becamequeen, on the 17th of November, 1558, they were children of four orfive years old.

In the year 1560 Sir Henry Sidney was made Lord President of Wales,representing the Queen in Wales and the four adjacent western